Death of a Neighbor

Bill and Laurie Nelson were among the quietest couples on Bethany Home Road, a well-tailored neighborhood just outside the city limits of Phoenix. Ariz. They owned their home, a rambling ranch house trimmed with apple-green cement blocks; they were surrounded by tasteful but not lavish trappings--Louis XIV-style furniture, a collection of miniature ivory elephants, a lantana-and-plumbago hedge planted and tended by Bill Nelson himself.

Around Phoenix, 55-year-old Bill Nelson described himself as a retired business man, indicating that hie had been a cattle broker. Every morning he would drive downtown in his 1953 Ford pickup truck to look over the stock-market quotations. One morning last week he got into his truck as usual, waved goodbye to his wife, and attempted to start the engine. There was a thunderous explosion, and Bill's broken body fell near the driveway, 15 feet from the pile of junk that had been a truck.

Within a few hours the neighbors knew who Bill Nelson really was. He was none other than Willie ("The Squealer") Bioff, frog-faced labor racketeer and longtime associate of the old Chicago Syndicate.

A 50% Man. Willie Bioff started out on the West Side of Chicago, the son of Russian immigrants. He graduated from selling newspapers to pandering, for which he drew a six-month sentence in 1922.

Willie soon joined with the Capone mob, became a specialist in labor-management relations. When the syndicate took over the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, A.F.L., Willie moved to Hollywood. Several years later, he was convicted along with the president of the union, George Browne, of extorting $550,000 from the studios under the threat of union strikes. Willie bragged that the take was $1,000,000. Willie got ten years, but was released in 1944, after he testified against the directorate of the syndicate. Among Willie's courtroom reminiscences:

Q. Did you once draw up a five-year plan for taking over 20% of Hollywood's profits and eventually a 50% interest in the studios?

A. If we'd lasted that long, we would have.

Q. Did you ever say you were boss of Hollywood and could make producers do what you wanted?

A. Yes--and I could make them dance to my music ... I was utterly ruthless.

Not Long to Live. Staring coldly at Willie Bioff as he discoursed upon their activities was an imposing array of hoodlums: Gunman Paul ("The Waiter") de Lucia, Muscleman Phil ("The Squire") D'Andrea, beer-war alumnus Charles ("Cherry Nose") Gioe, Machine-Gunner Louis ("Little New York") Campagna, Frank ("The Immune") Maritote, alias Frankie Diamond. One man was not there, yet his shadow frowned large: Frank ("The Enforcer") Nitti, a successor to Al Capone, had committed suicide the day of the indictment. Duly, the directorate was convicted. It was felt that Willie did not have long to live. By making himself hard to find, Willie stretched it out to eleven years.

Last week Maricopa County police put together bits of evidence indicating that Willie had recently been acting scared. He would not go out nights. He checked and rechecked the locks on his house. He even put the house up for sale. There was only the certainty that Willie left his pickup outside his house when he went to bed, an omission that led him to his sorry state on the morrow, lying mangled on his back minus a leg and a hand, staring emptily upwards at an orange tree full of fruit turning gold.

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